Birthday Traditions
by Black Goddess
Summary: SpikeAngel. Riley and his commandos are spying on Spike and Buffy when Angel shows up.


Birthday Traditions  
By the Black Goddess  
  
Disclaimer: BtVS does not belong to me. All characters belong to Joss Whedon. I don't think I've made references to anything else.  
  
A/N Set sometime during Season 4, before Riley knows about Spike. No real spoilers I don't think. I wrote this ages ago, and thought I'd type it up and post it. I think I wrote it from information I found on spoilers sites as well, so please ignore slight continuity errors with the series. Finally, this contains SLASH. M/M relationship hints. If this offends you, read on at your peril! Tell me what you think!   
  
"Wanker" muttered Spike irritably, pulling the top off a bottle of cheap vodka and taking a gulp. His voice attracted the attention of Forrest, who tapped Riley on the shoulder.  
"Hostile 17" he hissed, gesturing at the blond vampire who was gazing first at the bottle and then at his watch with deep disgust. Riley began to give the order to surround the vampire in preparation for capture when footsteps were heard. Buffy strolled into view swinging a carrier bag. She headed straight for Hostile 17, who turned to look at her. Riley cut off his order and gestured to his team to stay still.  
"Cursing my ex-honey again?" she said laughingly.  
"Wanker! I've got every right" said Spike angrily, taking another gulp from the bottle and pulling a face. Buffy frowned.  
"Why are you drinking? Drunk Spike is not a lot of fun."  
"I'll drink if I bloody well want to!" said Spike defensively. "You got my lunch?" he asked.  
Buffy passed him the carrier bag and he pulled out a carton.  
"Yuck" he muttered, drinking it all quickly. Switching back to his human face he settled back on his mausoleum and motioned Buffy to sit next to him. He took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and lit one.  
"Drinking and smoking. I may have to tell Giles" said Buffy, settling herself upwind so the smoke blew away from her. Spike rolls his eyes and blew smoke at her.  
"It's a special occasion, OK? I'm going to drink myself unconscious on this crap and your job is to make sure I get home."  
"What! I SO don't think so!"  
"You don't get a choice. Giles said one of you has to stay with me every night from ten 'til two to make sure I don't get into too much trouble."  
"He didn't know you'd be drinking."  
"You never know, I might get so drunk the implant stops working, or I just don't care about the pain. I could kill someone, and what would your precious Watcher say to you then? Besides, you can drink if you like. I brought you a bottle"  
"No, I don't think so. The last time I drank, I regressed ten thousand years. Never again."  
"That must have been funny" snickered Spike. "Before or after the invention of clothing?"  
"Spike, that's disgusting!" shrieked Buffy, leaning over and smacking the blond across the head with the flat of her hand.  
In the bushes, Riley frowned. They were getting along too well. And how did Buffy know Hostile 17?  
"For your information, it was after." said Buffy haughtily. "Anyway, last time I saw you drinking you were crying all over the place. Not eager for a repeat performance."  
"Extenuating circumstances" said Spike quickly.  
"What?"  
" 'That's different' or 'special circumstances' " translated Spike with a sigh. "The girl I'd been with for 125 years had just dumped me for a Chaos demon, all because of your and that wanker." He paused for a moment, scowling, and then said:  
"And just how stupid can you be? Your not a natural blond you know. Don't they teach English here? Or maybe they don't teach in LA, home of the great wanker himself and assorted sluts."  
"Sounds like your sort of place then" snapped Buffy. And they do teach English here, I just didn't like it."  
"I would've" said Spike glumly. "Some people get all the luck."  
"What do you mean?" asked Buffy, lying on her front and facing him on the mausoleum, kicking her feet in the air.  
"I used to like reading when I was alive. Besides, I like to know stuff" said Spike conversationally. "You never know when things'll come in handy. Willow's promised to teach me how to use the Internet." he said, sounding slightly triumphant.  
"For the free porn?" asked Buffy sarcastically..  
"No, for current affairs. The free porn's a bonus!" grinned Spike.  
"Why are you interested in current affairs? You've been dead for over 100 years!"  
"127 to be precise, and besides, the eating is good in places of civil conflict, you know, war zones, riots and so on."  
"That's sick Spike."  
"I know. Angel taught me it."  
"Angel taught you that?"  
"Yep, and lots of other things too, how to drive people mad, the best ways to play with your food, several handy torture tips.... Oh and brooding as an Olympic sport."  
"Angel does not brood!"  
"Maybe with you he doesn't - all the kissing doesn't leave him much time - but the rest of the time he broods spectacularly"  
"He has a lot to feel guilty about." pointed out Buffy.  
"So do you, but it doesn't bother you does it?"  
"Explain that remark." said Buffy icily.  
In the bushes, Riley tensed. His team looked at him, waiting for instructions. Riley completely ignored them, concentrating on the conversation.  
"Well, it was your fault he lost his soul in the first place."  
"We didn't know!" Buffy yelled, the pain in her voice obvious to the hidden observers, even though the wound that caused it was over two years old. "If we'd known, do you think we would have done it?"  
"But then you couldn't kill him" said Spike, ignoring the question. "If you'd killed him the next morning or after you destroyed the Judge, then that teacher wouldn't have died and the whole Acathla thing wouldn't have happened."  
"But I loved him" said Buffy softly.  
"You sent him to hell in the end, whether you loved him or not. It might have been kinder to have just staked him."  
"I couldn't" said Buffy. "He still looked like the man I loved. I couldn't kiss him one night and stake him the next."  
"No" said Spike dryly. "But you kissed him before you stuck that sword through his stomach and sent him shrieking to burn in the fiery pit."  
"Why are you doing this to me?" asked Buffy. Even the men in the bushes could hear that she was on the verge of tears.  
"Because I'm in a crap mood and fancied some company." said Spike, finishing the bottle of vodka and hurling it into the bushes, only narrowly avoiding Graham, who quickly dodged.  
"I wish I'd been able to steal whiskey. This stuff tastes like paint stripper." he said mournfully. "Today's a special day, I should be drinking something good, not turpentine!"  
"What's special about it?" asked Buffy obediently, her thoughts obviously miles away.  
"It's a memory day, and that is pretty much my most recent of the great wanker, excluding my last visit here and that time in LA."  
"Oh" said Buffy thoughtfully. "The last time I saw him was in LA." she said. Spike nodded and opened another bottle of vodka.  
"It was just after you came, after that Indian thing. I knew he was here. I felt it, but I didn't believe it. When I could, I went to his office and told him I could look after myself, that it wasn't fair if he could see me and I couldn't see him. He nodded and I left."  
"When was the time before that?" asked Spike, taking a large gulp of the vodka and glaring at the bottle in disgust.  
"Graduation. He'd told me on Prom night that he was going to leave. That really hurt. He was supposed to be my date, but he said he was leaving for ever after the ascension and I went alone. In the end he came for the last dance, but really it ruined the entire evening."  
"Typical." commented Spike. Buffy glared at him and continued. "Anyway, he stared at me through the smoke of the burning school and then just walked away." she said quietly. Spike snorted derisively.  
"That great poser! Can't you see he chose his moments? Broke up with you just before the Prom - you're not going to forget that are you? And then walking off into the distance without saying goodbye as if you're in some film or something. It's all dramatics." In the bushes, Riley nodded his agreement.  
Suddenly a third voice spoke.  
"Nah." it drawled. "It's just a matter of timing."  
"Angelus!" exclaimed Spike.  
"Angel?" gasped Buffy. Both leapt down from the mausoleum and Spike carefully placed his open bottle out of harms way and brandished an unopened one.  
"Yep."  
A third man sauntered into view. Forrest nudged Riley, showing him the readings confirming that this was not a man but a hostile.  
"Nice to know you think about me when I'm not there." said Angel calmly. He was wearing tight leather pants and a velvet shirt.  
"Spike, if you throw that bottle at me, I'll stick it up your arse." he said calmly. "Buffy, you can go if you like. I can look after Spike for the rest of the night."  
"No you bloody well can't!" snarled Spike. "I want my vodka. I stole it!"  
"Stole it?" said Buffy, taking this in for the first time. "Now I'll have to tell Giles."  
"Stake him first." said Spike. "He only wears leather pants when he's evil"  
"I got blood on my jeans." said Angel. "I'm not evil! Ring Cordy and see. If Wesley's alive, I'm good."  
Buffy snickered. "I believe you." she said. She leaned around Spike and removed three unopened bottles of vodka from the plastic bag he'd been leaning on.  
"I'll take these. Willow and I might need them" she said cheerfully. "Don't tell Giles!" she laughed. She turned and began to walk away, calling over her shoulder:  
"Take care Angel, he's moping." She laughed again and headed off quickly in the direction of her dorm. Both the vampires and the commandos in the bushes watched her leave. Only the commandos however saw her climb swiftly into a tree to spy on the vampires.  
Spike jumped back onto his mausoleum and settled back, glaring at Angel and gulping some vodka. Angel shook his head and sighed.  
"Honestly Spike" he said in a long-suffering way. "If you stole it, why couldn't you steal the good stuff?"  
"Too much effort. Under the shopkeepers eye. Before your slut - I mean Slayer - girlfriend took the other two, I was just going to get unconscious as fast as I could."  
"She took three."  
"I stole her one in case she wanted to join me. If she didn't finish it, the remains was hair-of-the-dog."  
"Figures." Angel took the bottle of vodka from Spike and downed it.  
"Maybe it actually IS paint stripper. That stuff is so cheap it was probably free with something. Come on, I'll stand you a couple of rounds of something better."  
"Are you sure you're not evil?" asked Spike.  
"Can't I buy my child a drink on his birthday without my motives being questioned?" said Angel, giving Spike puppy-dog eyes and sounding deeply hurt. Spike grinned.  
"I thought you'd forgotten."  
"Nope. Some traditions need keeping up. You'll have to forgo the four virgins this year unless you want to buy the blood from Willy's, and the last-one-standing is also out, but the third..."  
"Sounds good to me" said Spike, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "What time did you say you had to be back in LA?"  
"Tomorrow evening. We've got plenty of time."  
"Good. Let's go to Willy's then. You can have that vodka to et caught up, then a whisky or several and back to mine. OK?"  
"No problems here." smiled Angel.  
"That's not what it looks like to me!" smirked Spike.  
"We'll sort that out after the whiskey." Angel kissed Spike gently on the lips.  
"Come on" he said breathily. "Let's get the whiskey over with."  
  
As the two vampires walked off in the direction of central Sunnydale, a very shocked Slayer and some rather surprised commandos stared after them.  
  
REVIEW!  
  



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